BrokerScience Mortgage Marketing Blog » Brabus Ventures

LeapFish / DotNext CEO, Ben Behrouzi Defeated

Trace Richardson — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:22:26 +0000

On October 22nd, 2008, Ben Behrouzi / Eperks /LeapFish’s atorney, Ronald J. Cook filed for dismissal of their complaint against Vlad Zablotzkyy. This is yet one more embarrassment for Ben Behrouzi in addition to the public humiliation and ridicule that has already befallen him and his dieing brand ePerks, at the hands of the Real Estate community at large.

The withdrawal was likely the result of a settlement with Vlad (the terms of which have not been disclosed) in which Vlad was required to post a statement which is essentially a lawyer contrived “I’m Sorry”. One highlight is where “Vlad” requests that other bloggers covering the story print retractions. Vlad was outgunned and his willingness to settle clearly reflects that.

Considering that Ben Behhrouzi has threatened BrokerScience with threats similar to those he made against Vlad, we see this defeat as fitting, to say the least.

“Behnam “Ben” Behrouzi filed what’s called an “unverified” complaint against Vlad. That’s in contrast to a “verified” complaint, in which the plaintiff signs the complaint and declares under penalty of perjury that the statements in the complaint are true and correct. The lawsuit ended in settlement without Behrouzi ever making any statement under oath. Specifically, he never denied that he was responsible for the slander of Vlad.” – Brief Submitted to BrokerScience by Source that Wished to Remain Anonymous

While most intelligent CEO’s couldn’t attract the kind of bad publicity and ill will Behrouzi has managed to generate for ePerks on their worst day, this is an area where Ben truly shines. Then again, Ben has proven himself to be a tactless bully time and time again, so this is par for the course.

Ben’s reward for bullying Vlad Zablotzkyy with childish antics is the distinction of having negative results in 7 of the top 10 results for his name when googling “Ben Behrouzi“. Great job Ben! These will remain for YEARS and YEARS. A google search for “ePerks” shows 9 out of the top 10 results have negative content.

Spamming the Ben Behrouzi Way

To counter the extremely negative public reaction to his business practices in google, Ben began a spam / search engine dilution campaign in August by creating accounts with a large amount of service providers such as youtube.com, vator.tv and others in hopes these would replace the existing negative google results that come up when googling “Ben Behrouzi”. You can find the complete list at the bottom of this very unprofessional and amateur looking homepage Ben has created for himself here. Over time, these will end up being virtually useless for his end goal of spamming the results for his name.

He has also started maxstartup.com that was originally yet another ePerks splog until recently. Don’t laugh too hard when reading this gem from “MaxStartUp”:

I’ve had several failures in my life with some lessons that have left their spots, and have even been victim to online lies and an actual blog war instigated by the many that are motivated by the basest of human qualities.

Did Brabus Ventures Implode or is the Brand Simply Toxic?

It is worth noting that Ben Behrouzi’s parent company, Brabus Ventures has recently disassembled its corporate website at BrabusVentures.com including removing the Cultures and Values pages that Ben Behrouzi stole from Mervyns.com and Chevron.com. It seems that the root cause is that Ben Behrouzi is distancing himself from Brabus Ventures with a name change, after all a google search for “Brabus Ventures” shows 7 out of 10 listings have negative content regarding his company. We have no word yet on whether Ben plans on changing his own name to escape the embarrassment associated with it.

Simply Embarrassing:

Brabus Ventures Before Disassembly

Brabus Ventures After Disassembly

The New Face of Brabus Ventures - DotNext Inc.

The Next Generation of Fail: DotNext, Inc.

DotNext, Inc. is the new incarnation of Brabus Ventures. When most companies change their name, they give notice on their home page and redirect visitors to the new domain. Not Ben Behrouzi. His ability to single handedly destroy brands is the reason he is running from the Brabus Ventures name / reputation. When people think of Brabus Ventures, they think of Ben Behrouzi, when they think of Ben Behrouzi, they think of ePerks and when people think of ePerks, they think of ….. well you get the idea. Ben Behrouzi, his brands and his ongoing business practices are very negatively viewed in the Real Estate Community.

Notice that at BrabusVentures.com lists ePerks and Brabus as the only company properties. It is not until you go to dotnexinc.com that you see LeapFish, Ziddler and Ihype as properties with no mention of Brabus or ePerks. They are clearly trying to stop the bleeding and brand destruction caused by being associated with the Brabus Ventures / Ben Behrouzi names by isolating ePerks and Brabus together. Wow and sad.

On a final note, in recent months, current ePerks employees have been briefing us on Ben’s latest “secret” project, LeapFish.com, but to be honest we don’t care. We’ve wasted enough time highlighting the EPIC FAIL that is Ben Behrouzi already. Surprisingly, Ben has failed to garner any top search engine spots for “Epic Fail” yet, but it is one thing Ben is consistent with, so give him time.

Thank you to the community and everyone that did what they could to help Vlad Zablotzkyy defeat Ben Behrouzi / Eperks / Brabus Ventures!!! While there are too many to thank individually, an honorable mention goes out to Andy Beard and “Big Gun” Swann for putting their weight behind Vlad.

LeapFish / ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi Voicemails Exposed: Threatens to Blackball and Sue Employee

Trace Richardson — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:05:23 +0000

Leapfish / Ben Behrouzi Bombshell

Since BrokerScience first began covering LeapFish and ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi, we have received a lot of reader submitted information in the form of: stories of first hand experiences with LeapFish / ePerks / Ben Behrouzi (as employees and customers), emails, voice mails, and other miscellaneous information and data relating to Ben and company. We have published virtually none of it and do not plan on publishing it in the future unless it is pertinent to the facts involved in our coverage. The following voice mails are an exception. They help establish a pattern of legal harassment by Ben Behrouzi that goes all the way back to his days at Reply.com.

One common theme among all current and former employees we speak to that have worked under Ben Behrouzi at Reply.com or ePerks.com is that they fear the consequences involved with sharing their story. The legal harassment and worse that ePerks critics such as Vlad Zablotzkyy (link removed due to page removal as part of terms of legal settlement with Ben), Dennis Pease and BrokerScience have endured are a testament to those concerns.

One person that is not afraid of Ben Behrouzi is former Reply.com employee Scott Chestnut. Scott worked under Ben Behrouzi (who was the Chief Technology Officer despite the fact that he was still in school working on a philosophy degree) as a Senior Network Engineer. While building out what was to be a million dollar network, Scott realized that working for Ben was an unworkable situation, so he walked out in frustration. The following voice mail from Ben Behrouzi chronicles Ben’s threats to blackball Scott and insure he is unable to gain employment, insinuating this will affect him for life and have deep reaching effects.

“My new goal in life is going to become to ruin your name across this entire East Bay……..you can take that to the bank, you can put your future kids or your girlfriend or whoever you want to put on it.” – ePerks CEO, Ben Behrouzi to employee that left the company

Ben Behrouzi Threatening to Blackball and “Ruin the Name” of Former Employee

http://brokerscience.com/files/2008/06/benscott.mp3
Later, Ben left another message regarding a vendor, CDW. He again makes false allegations and threatens legal action. Even though he claims he is in the process of preparing legal action, no legal action ever took place, an experience similar to what others have faced.

Ben suggests “using dollars” to make up for the indiscretions he accuses Scott of, similar to the verbiage he used when he threatened BrokerScience and tried to set up a conference call to discuss “damages“.

At some point after Scott walked out, Ben and his team were reportedly let go from Reply.com and Scott was again offered his position back at Reply.com.

Ben Behrouzi Threatening Legal Action Against Former Employee / No Action Was Ever Filed

http://brokerscience.com/files/2008/06/benscott2.mp3
Conclusion. These voice mails are more evidence documenting a pattern of legal harassment and threats by Ben Behrouzi against anybody that gets in his way. While I am not familiar with the legality of of blackballing I am somewhat certain that “ruining someone’s name” for the purposes of insuring they cannot obtain employment is nothing short of defamation. Ben’s actions are consistent with the lack of ethics we have seen ePerks and iHype exhibit. There is now no question that in our opinion, Ben Behrouzi operates without an ethical or moral code.

Feedback: Do you have a negative or positive LeapFish / ePerks / Ben Behrouzi story you would like to share as an current or ex employee, colleague or customer? We can’t guarantee we will publish it, but appreciate your feedback and it may help bloggers like Vlad Zablotzky fight against Ben Behrouzi and company. Contact us here.

Ben Behrouzi Updates Company “Values” and “Culture” Web Pages. Only One Problem: They’re Stolen.

Trace Richardson — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 08:22:45 +0000

Brabus Ventures (BrabusVentures.com), owned by embattled CEO Ben Behrouzi and parent company of ePerks.com, LeapFish and DotNextInc has updated it’s website and added new “Values” and “Culture” pages to combat the barrage of negative publicity their business practices have earned them. There is only one problem: the pages are STOLEN virtually verbatim from Chevron.com and Mervyns.com. Oh, the irony, in stealing “Values” and “Culture” pages.

This is no surprise, CEO Ben Behrouzi and his companies have a proven track record of engaging in unethical behavior and marketing and his latest debacle of adding “copyright infringement” to his resume are par for the course. This is a time that one would think, as CEO, he should be apologizing to the victims of his harassment and focusing on his failed startup, iHype.com which one of his employees humorously defended as a “soft launch” when it failed to launch as announced on June 2nd.

BrabusVentures.com Steals Culture Page from Mervyns.com

(Click Thumbnail Below For Full Size Image)

Screenshot of Original Mervyns.com Page / Screenshot of Offending BrabusVentures.com Page

BrabusVentures.com Steals Values Page from Chevron.com

(Click Thumbnail Below For Full Size Image)

Screenshot of Original Chevron.com Page / Screenshot of Offending BrabusVentures.com Page

Dissasemble. I really want to make this story go away, but it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I REALLY want to write some positive stories here.

While it is fairly common for content to be recycled on real estate and mortgage websites (especially privacy pages, legal pages, glossaries and even basic content that define general concepts) it is never ok for a CEO or Founder to steal a Mission Statement, Values Statement, or Definition of Company Culture. Never. Ever.

These are the documents that define the moral, ethical and business code of your company and are the basis for the culture that is created through the actions and leadership of company founders and management. These are to be created with care, sensitivity and purpose. Without positive core beliefs, philosophies and morals, one is truly lost.

UPDATE: BrabusVentures.com has been abandoned due to bad press with no redirect or mention to the new site at Dotnextinc.com.